When we started planning for this inaugural session of Breakfast Around the World, Ms. Grace and I kept our syllabus open-ended on purpose to leave room for students' own ideas about what foods they wanted to prepare in class. We had many requests to celebrate the cuisine of Ireland. Since it was just St. Patrick's Day, we thought this would be an excellent time to do so!
This week, each class made soda bread dough that was then baked for the next day's class to enjoy. (We don't have an oven yet in the kitchen classroom but are working on it!) We served the soda bread toast with three traditional toppings: butter (made by the students), gooseberry jam, and baked beans. Many of us were surprised to discover how yummy baked beans taste on toast and are now converts to this relatively rare pairing in the United States.
On Thursday, one of our students whose mother is from Ireland shared with the class about how Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, how soda bread gets its name from the ingredient baking soda, and how it is traditional to cut a cross on top of the dough before placing it in the oven in order to let the fairies out.
There was a lot to measure this week.
The fairies have already departed!
We talked about how Zante currants are actually raisins because they come from grapes.
Mixing butter into the flour is really fun!
We juiced Cara Cara oranges and then macerated the currants in the bowl.
Caraway seeds went into the buttermilk mixture.
Students made butter by shaking heavy cream in a mason jar throughout class until the butter separated from the buttermlk. It was better than a fidget spinner.
Someone asked if we dyed the butter, it was such a beautiful shade of yellow when it was done! (And no, we did not.)
A winning combo!
